Clock is ticking on consolidating 4 Pottstown fire companies

Goodwill Fire & Rescue Company No 1 in Pottstown. (Photo by John Strickler/The Mercury)

POTTSTOWN — For more than three years, borough government has been urging Pottstown’s four independent fire companies to come up with some plan for consolidating.

Earlier this month, the clock started ticking for real when the borough issued a letter to all four companies notifying them that the fire service agreement between them and the borough would be terminated at the end of the year and starting in 2015, the borough will only sign one fire services agreement with a single, consolidated fire company.

Unlike the police department, fire protection in Pottstown is not under the direction of borough government, but instead is provided by four independent volunteer fire companies over which Pottstown Fire Chief Richard Lengel has operational control during a fire.

But in matters of their own affairs, such as finances, the election of officers and the like, the fire companies are independent.

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“We’ve said all along that the borough will not tell them how to do it, that they can organize themselves however they want, but we will only sign an agreement with one entity,” Borough Manager Mark Flanders, who announced the change to borough council at the July 14 council meeting, told The Mercury.

Flanders said the primary reason for the borough’s insistence on consolidation is cost.

Each company employs paid drivers, who are at the fire houses 24 hours a day, and who drive the equipment to fire calls, where volunteers meet them, thus reducing response time and keeping homeowner fire insurance rates in Pottstown lower.

Other than the purchase of new fire trucks (which is sometimes undertaken by the borough), the salaries of those drivers, and the cost of their benefits, is among the highest expense items for each of the fire companies.

Although the borough has no intention of decreasing the amount of money it contributes each year toward providing fire protection, “the borough has a responsibility to pay close attention to how taxpayer money is spent, and to find new and innovative ways to control rising costs,” Flanders wrote in a summary of the issues facing fire company consolidation.

“I can confirm that all four borough fire companies have received the same letter terminating the current fire service agreement that has been in effect since 2007,” Goodwill Fire Chief Kevin Yerger wrote in an e-mail responding to a Mercury inquiry.

“The four companies have met and discussed how to proceed but no definite determination on a course of action has been finalized,” he wrote.

In March 2012, when the companies began meeting, Yerger said in addition to the issues of company pride and identity, “one thing we are striving for is to make sure we do not eliminate any staff. We could be looking at a simple move, where two companies coexist in the same location, or it could be more complex with one company comprising the entire fire company.”

It recommended the merger of the Phillies and Empire fire companies, now moot, and the construction of a new $3 million joint firehouse for both.

In his summary of the situation, Flanders wrote the consolidation would result in a more efficient use of increasingly scarce resources as well as streamline and perhaps eliminate competition for recruiting new volunteers.

“Borough Council is being proactive and attempting to be proactive and offer guidance and encouragement to the companies to look beyond to look beyond the immediate present and well into the future, to the long-term viability of fire protection in the Borough of Pottstown,” Flanders wrote.

“To resist consolidation and fail to address these issues presently places the future of quality fire service delivery to the residents of the Borough of Pottstown in jeopardy,” wrote Flanders.

Although complicated by history and circumstances, this issue is not unique to Pottstown.

According to the Legislative Budget and Finance Committee, which issued a report in 2005 to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, “accounting for less than 5 percent of the nation’s population, Pennsylvania has 12 percent of the nation’s 20,000 all-volunteer fire companies, more than any other state.”

Pennsylvania has 2,448 fire companies, including 2,354 all-volunteer companies, 22 career (paid) and 72 combination that, like Pottstown, has some paid employees and some volunteers, according to the report.

Given the difficulties presented by a dwindling pool of potential volunteers and the ever-rising cost of firefighting techniques and technology, mergers, consolidation and regionalization has been the commonwealth’s suggested course of action.

The state Department of Community and Economic Development has urged consolidation and offers services to help do so, motivated in part by the fact that there is currently no documentation to determine if particular pieces of equipment being purchased with the help of state grants “are already available in neighboring jurisdictions,” the report said.

About the Author

Evan Brandt has worked for The Mercury since November 1997. His beat includes Pottstown, the surrounding townships and the Pottstown and Pottsgrove school districts, as well as other varied general topics like politics, the environment and education. Reach the author at ebrandt@pottsmerc.com
or follow Evan on Twitter: @PottstownNews.